Edward L. Doheny
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Edward Laurence Doheny (August 10, 1856 - September 8, 1935) was an Irish American oil tycoon, who in 1892, along with partner Charles A. Canfield, drilled the first successful well in the Los Angeles City oil field, setting off the petroleum boom in southern California. Formerly an unsuccessful prospector in New Mexico and the American Southwest, the Wisconsin-born Doheny became wealthy through his California oil interests, and was later also successful in the oil fields of Tampico, Mexico. During the administration of President Warren G. Harding, Doheny was implicated in the Teapot Dome Scandal and was accused of offering a $100,000 bribe to Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall in order to secure drilling rights without competitive bidding to the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve in central California. He was twice acquitted of offering the bribe that Fall was convicted of accepting. Doheny and his second wife and widow, Carrie Estelle, were noted philanthropists in Los Angeles. The character Vern Roscoe in Upton Sinclair's novel Oil (the inspiration for the 2007 film There Will Be Blood) is loosely based on Doheny.
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[edit] Early career
Doheny was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. His family history reaches back to Ireland, from which his family fled in the wake of the Great Famine.
Doheny graduated from high school at age 15 as the valedictorian of his class. [1] Following his father’s death several months after his graduation, he was employed by the U.S. Geological Survey, and in 1873 was sent to Kansas with a party surveying and subdividing the Kiowa-Comanche lands. The following year he left the Geological Survey to pursue his fortune prospecting, first in the Black Hills of South Dakota and then in Arizona Territory. By 1880 he was in the Black Mountains of southwestern New Mexico, then part of Arizona Territory, living in the rough, silver- mining town of Kingston, prospecting, mining, and buying and trading mining claims. During his time in Kingston he met two men who would play important roles in his later life—Albert Fall, the future Secretary of the Interior, and his business partner Charles A. Canfield. It was also during this time that he met and married his first wife, Carrie Louella Wilkins, on August 7, 1883.
Doheny and Canfield together worked the former’s Mount Chief Mine with little success, and thus in 1886 Canfield prospected further in the Kingston area, leasing and developing with great success the Comstock Mine, not to be confused with the Comstock Lode of Virginia City, Nevada. Doheny declined to join him in this venture, and whereas Canfield made a small fortune from it, Doheny was reduced eventually to doing odd jobs to support his family. [1]
In the Spring of 1891, Doheny left New Mexico with his wife and daughter, and moved to Los Angeles, attracted by Canfield’s success in Los Angeles real estate. Canfield had previously left New Mexico with $110,000 in cash from his Comstock Mine venture, a sum that he parlayed into extensive real estate holdings during the Los Angeles boom of the later 1880s. With the collapse of the speculative fever, Canfield lost his wealth and land holdings and, by the time Doheny arrived in Los Angeles in 1891, was deeply in debt. Briefly the two men tried their prospecting luck in San Diego, forming there the Pacific Gold and Silver Extracting Company, but returned to Los Angeles soon thereafter without achieving success.[1] By 1892, Doheny was so poor he could not afford to pay for his boarding room.[2]
[edit] Commercial success
While in Los Angeles, Doheny found out that there was pitch beneath the soil. Doheny obtained a lease near downtown with $400 in financing from friend Charles Canfield, who had made some money from the mining industry. A poor man, Doheny dug a well with picks and shovels, looking for pitch, which could be mixed with soil to extract petroleum. When the well reached a depth of 150 feet (46 m) Doheny devised a drilling system involving a eucalyptus tree trunk.[2] The well, when completed in 1903, produced 40 barrels per day (6.4 m³/d).
Doheny and Canfield soon made a fortune by drilling in the area and selling the oil to nearby factories. Later, they helped spur the California oil boom of the early 1900s by convincing railroads to switch from coal to oil as power for their locomotives.[2]
Doheny would later form the PanAmerican Petroleum and Transport Company. The company owned 600,000 acres (2400 km²) of land in Mexico worth about $50 million. It would later become the Mexican Petroleum Company with an additional 800,000 acres (3200 km²) in Mexico in October 1919. He would later step down from chairmanship and become head of Pan American Western Petroleum Company.
Doheny also made his mark in the 1916 Presidential election by wagering on Woodrow Wilson to be the victor. A common practice at the time, this bet made him $500,000 richer.
Doheny took his yacht, the Casiana (named after his first major producing oil well in Mexico, the Casiana No. 7)[1], to Martinique to pick up a friend's brother who worked as a farmer on the island and who was seriously ill. Doheny brought him back to New York; the steam yacht was able to make the trip in only 5 days.
[edit] Philanthropy
Doheny contributed money to foundations. He helped fund the construction of St. Vincent de Paul Church. He also donated $1.1 million in 1932 to USC to build the Edward L. Doheny, Jr., Memorial Library.[2] His second wife, Carrie Estelle Doheny donated her rare book collection St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, CA.
Doheny is also famous for another of his gifts — the wedding gift of Greystone Mansion to his son, Edward (Ned) L. Doheny, Jr. He built the $3,188,000 house in 1928. Doheny, Sr., had a mansion in the historical West Adams district of Los Angeles and in Chester Place, a gated community of Victorian mansions which Doheny developed. It was built in 1899 in the French Gothic architectural style. This 3-story, 22-room Doheny Mansion was damaged in the 1933 earthquake but was repaired, and is now part of Mount St. Mary's College's campus, where it houses college departments, docent tours, and chamber music concerts by The Da Camera Society.
The Doheny family also owned a great deal of coastal land in Dana Point, CA, which was donated for Doheny State Beach and donated the funds for the construction of the original site of St. Edward the Confessor Roman Catholic Church, which has since moved to a bluff-top location overlooking Doheny State Beach. The original building is now home to San Felipe de Jesus Roman Catholic Church. The Doheny Estate has donated money for the construction of buildings and residence halls to Loyola Marymount University and the land for one of the campuses of Mount Saint Mary's College in Los Angeles.
[edit] Politics
Doheny's reputation was somewhat tainted by a bribe paid to the Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall. The "gift" of $100,000 was made in connection with obtaining a lease of 32,000 acres (130 km²) of government owned land used for the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve near Taft, California. The resulting scandal broke soon after that over similar bribes Fall accepted for leasing Teapot Dome in Wyoming. Doheny faced criminal charges over the incident but was cleared of all charges, including murder. The scandal is also the inspiration for Upton Sinclair's novel, Oil!, based in part on Doheny's life.[2]
He died on September 8, 1935 of unspecified causes. His funeral was in St. Vincent's Church in Los Angeles, a church that he built. Doheny Drive in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills are named after him.
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c Davis, Margaret L. (1998). Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 0-520-22909-6.
- ^ a b c d "John Yewell: Black gold gave state its glitter", Monterey Herald, December 13, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
[edit] References
- Margaret Leslie Davis. Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 0-520-22909-6
- Martin R. Ansell. Oil Baron of the Southwest. Ohio State University Press, 1998.
